Ken and Nancy Merriman have made the Katikati community richer, stronger and more resilient - Kit Wilson told the couple at a community farewell in their honour at the weekend.

Kit was host for the 'This is Your Life” themed event in the Katikati Memorial Hall attended by more the 100 people to thank the Merrimans who, are among others, founders of the Katikati Heritage Museum.

Ken and Nancy Merriman arrived in a 1959 Ford Fairlane for their farewell at the Katikati War Memorial Hall.

In March the couple and their family gifted the museum's collection to the community and sold the land and buildings to the Katikati Heritage Museum Trust, leaving in funds to enable the community group to afford the purchase.

With the sale went their home so the couple have now moved to the Bob Owen Retirement Village in Bethlehem.

Sponsored by the Katikati Community Board, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Katikati Rotary and Lions Club, the afternoon began when the Merrimans arrived in the 1959 Ford Fairlane driven by musician and family friend Bill Ward.

Kerewai Wanakore of Katikati's Tereatukahia Marae called the couple into the hall, through a guard of honour formed by Katikati Netball players. Paeahi Wanakore welcomed Ken and Nancy and the community in Maori followed by a waiata performed by Mabel Wherekawa Burt, Dolores Nathan, Kerewai and Paeahi and supporters from the marae.

Katikati Heritage Museum volunteer Sue Sisley dressed Ken Merriman in 1900s cap and apron in a light-hearted interlude during the Merriman's farewell in Katikati on Sunday.

CEO of Netball Bay of Plenty Sheryl Dawson was the first to speak, praising Nancy for the work she has done to establish and help retain netball in Katikati.

Next was Kevin Skipper, Ken and Nancy's foster son who arrived as a small boy by bus from Auckland with a label around his neck addressed to the Merrimans of Te Puna, which was where the couple were farming.

'Ken and Nancy you gave me a wonderful home. If you hadn't the option would have been an orphanage. I had a wonderful childhood and have always been part of your family as are now my wife and my children,” says Kevin.

Former Western Bay of Plenty District Council deputy mayor and current Katikati Community Board member Sam Dunlop told how the woman he called `Auntie' helped him understand how council worked and was his mentor.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council Mayor Ross Paterson said he remembered facing Nancy when, in the days before he entered politics, he was part of a company seeking resource consent for a deer abattoir in the Kaimai Ranges. Nancy was chair of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council Regulatory and Monitoring Committee hearing the application.

He praised all that both Ken and Nancy have done for the community, and in particular the legacy they have left in the museum.

Katikati Heritage Museum Trust chair Alistair Boot says the community owed a huge debt of gratitude to Ken and Nancy and their family for the gift of the museum collection which began with the couple's purchase of the Goodwin bottle collection and had been extended over the past 11 years to create a unique record of Katikati's history.

In a light hearted touch, three museum volunteers, Dorothy Warbrooke, Dianne Connelly Cook and Sue Sisley dressed Ken and Nancy in period caps and aprons and took them to task as school mistresses did in the early 1900s, re-enacting the kind of experience the couple have given many school children how visited the museum during the time they owned it.

Katikati artist Pat Williams presented the Merrimans with a water colour painting of the museum on behalf of the community and the afternoon concluded with a hymn and them a medley of old song led by the Merriman's son-in-law Gregg Marshall and Mabel Wharekawa Burt, finishing with rousing rendition of 'For they are jolly good fellows.”

Afternoon tea catered for by Katikati Netball ended the event.

Nancy and Ken Merriman were given a water colour, painted by Pat Williams, of the Katikati Heritage Museum they founded at their farewell on Sunday.

Nancy received a Queens Service Medal in the recent Queens Birthday awards in recognition of her services to Katikati and the wider Western Bay community.

She served nine years as deputy chair of the Tauranga Museum Board and is a foundation trustee of the Athenree Homestead Trust.

In 1974 she became the first woman elected to the then Tauranga County Council. She was elected to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council in 1989 where she was Regulatory and Monitoring Committee chair for a term.

Nancy helped establish the Katikati Business and Professional Women's Club, the Katikati Toastmistress Club, Tauranga Women's Refuge, and the first Tauranga Family Planning Clinic.

Since 2005 Nancy has chaired the Katikati Community Health Trust which she helped establish in 1992. Nancy was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1997.

Nancy moved to Katikati as a seven-year-old and she and Ken lived in the district from the time they were first married in the 1950s.